Just out of Atacama is the start of the climb into the high Andes and the Altiplano and its volcanoes. The road from Atacama took us straight up another 2,000 metres in altitude – at the base of the mountain it was about 4,600 metres. Despite the lack of evidence of any rainfall, the snow banks still lay on the ground in sections. It was really cold.
Our destination was the Salar de Tara, which is a high altitude lagoon, fed by the snow melt. For most of the journey we travelled along the highway, which takes you to the main border crossings for Bolivia and Argentina. We followed the bitumen for 100 kilometres before hitting the turnoff at which point we got onto the path to the lagoon. Here there were no signposts, not even any road, just vague signs of vehicle tracks heading out across the barren desert. It looked ok, so we took our little 2WD Hyundai on a little adventure.
Just off the road was the Monjes de la Pekana which were massive stones that were lain bare by millions of years of wind erosion. They were pretty impressive! Notice our little car at the bottom...
We thought we had plenty of petrol, after all the car had done 300 kilometres on half a tank the day before, getting from Antofagasta to San Pedro de Atacama, and this day was around 200 kilometres round trip. What we hadn’t factored in, was going up the massive hill we had to climb and the impact that had on the fuel consumption. Long story short, as we headed back to San Pedro de Atacama with 80 kilometres to go the fuel light came on. We were considering the almost certain possibility of having to hitch back to town. As luck would have it, going down the mountain meant we used virtually no petrol whatsoever and we coasted into town … just. Back to our hotel for a stiff drink!
After finding the only petrol station in town (hidden inside the grounds of a hotel) we headed back out to the salt flats of Lagoona Chaxa. Trippy place. This is where the run off from the mountains, having no where to go, evaporates into large salt flats. This is one of the best places around San Pedro de Atacama to see the flamingos that feed off the crustaceans that live in the briny water. It because of the diet of these crustaceans that flamingos are pink.
